That's a whole lot of power usage...

[Macca]

I am insanely jealous of your guys per KWH rates, here in New Zealand, my domestic 80A single phase supply rate is currently 18.3c/per KWH.....and its about to get worse when our Government signs us all up to the Carbon Emissions Trading Scheme, making it costly for coal fired electricity stations to continue operating....

 

[pete_c]

Hydronic radiant heat looks like the way to go. Thanks guys.

Macca,

Your electric rates are really high in NZ.

Electric rates here in the MW have doubled or so in the last couple of years along with natural gas costs. I have a mixture of both natural gas and electric components in the home. The HVAC here is a combination of both using natural gas for the heating in the winter, lots of electric for the cooling in the summer and electric year around for the HVAC fans. In the kitchen the stove is natural gas and the rest of the appliances are electric.

It used to be that I took the cost of energy lightly where as now I do not.

-pete

 

[signal15]

One of my cousins in Europe built his home and used hyronics thruout the home. Interesting in that he showed me his setup I noticed that he used small valves to control the heat for every room in his home.

You can do zoning based on solenoid valves to turn on and off individual loops, or do it with pumps. I chose to do it with pumps because the valves go bad frequently. If you look at the pic to my system, the flow in it is all based on pressures. That big valve in the middle has 4 outlets on it. The changes in pipe size and the pressure differentials generated by pumps turning on and off keep the glycol flowing in the desired direction. It's more reliable than putting solenoid valves in. Calfetti makes a great book on hydronic heating system design. I suggest picking up a copy if you're going to design your own system. Might want to check the library though, it's about $400 new.

If you do choose to do solenoids anywhere, put a full port ball valve on either side of it so you can isolate that section to replace the solenoid rather than having to drain a large portion of the system. Valves are not cheap though. I think I have about $600 into valves. You must also use Pex-Al-Pex or barrier PEX for the system. Regular PEX is oxygen permeable. And, always use glycol, especially in a garage. If for some reason the system does freeze, you are screwed with water. Most glycols have some anti-corrosives in it also. I mixed mine 50/50 with distilled water. Never use tap water.

I also put an additional inlet and outlet on my supply and return lines. You can see it on the bottom left and bottom right. I'm going to run these to the basement for another distribution manifold and put pumps down there so I don't have to run a bunch of stuff back to the garage when I do the rest of the house.

I bought everything from http://www.energyonlinestore.com/. They sell premade panels that look almost identical to mine. But I chose to buy the parts separately and build it. It saved me some money, and I was able to do some things that they didn't offer in their premade systems. All of this stuff is available at Menards now also, so you can go in and roll a cart out the door with everything you need.